Normalcy
by Kasan Soulblade
Summary: You know, normally trainers are supposed to train thier pokemon, not the other way around!" Not one to be phased growlithe let out a line of flame, just to show who was alpha in this relationship.
1. Intro: A walk

Normalcy

Intro: A Walk

_Intro to the story, author's introduction: Written to "Pretender" by the Foo Fighters. I've had this random idea rattling around in my head... it's a strange one, very surreal, but I wanted to see if I could make it work. Basically this is a writing exercise where I am trying to mesh a series of random story snipits together, some are easily conectable, some are not._

_Official Summery: Normally trainers trained pokemon… but sometimes _that_ shoe fit the paw nicely. Add to that the fickle nature of memory and things are made a mess all around._

Once there had been another. That other had been a quiet entity of white, with saucer wide eyes the no-color of ice.

Back then, with the other, there had been a shred of normalcy to life. Things had there patterned course. Time came and went, refrained from its present hopping… and the disorientation hadn't become a fact of life. Unfortunately then wasn't now, and now was to be endured.

As if catching the taint of self pity that stained the leash holder's thoughts the leashed lifted one red snout to the air and let out a loud sniff.

_All the better clear out the stench of your pity_, black eyes rimmed round by red fur seemed to say with the merest of gazes. The sniffer in this case had coal black eyes and though stark they were expressive eyes mounted on an equally versatile façade.

"And you like me, why?" The leash holder murmured. Her voice was mundane; low though, very low, and soft. Beyond those outstanding features the voice and its owner were as mundane as could be.

Another sniff… more like a snuff this time actually, was the answer. Black eyes broke contact as the creature shook its head in disbelief.

_If it was all possible the sick-sweet smell was thickening from offensive whiff to lingering miasma…_

And in truth that glance said all that needed to be said. Reiteration was a waste of time in the eyes of the efficient, and the owner of those black eyes was efficient to the core. With the stomp of orange and black stripped paws the leashed went forward at a crisp pace… and the leash holder was all but forced into a trot to keep pace.

After two minutes of a trot things became more lively as the pace was upgraded to a sprint.

"No! Stop…" Words were barked out, forced past sharp pants.

The red head topped with a red tinted mop of white, said mop bobbed up and down with its own rhythm as the gait went. Tongue lolling the leashed let out a sharp "arf" that was more challenge than jest. A snarl from behind and the increasing of the slack of the leash told him that the challenge was being take up. With a self congratulatory bark the leader of this two personed pack picked up the pace, upgrading sprint to a level of a mad dash.

His banner of choice was the flare of his mane, the slicked back fur on his scalp and the parting taunt of a swish of his curled tail was his favorite mode of passing the world by. His victim of the moment got a long time to look at that tail and its swish. And, outre of the bizarre, the leash holder managed to keep up. Granted, the series of gasps and wheezes behind him that the pace keeping wasn't easy, not in the least…

But life wasn't easy, as the self pitying were _so_ fond of dwelling on.

Life wasn't easy, it wasn't hard, it just _was_. You lived it, soft or cruel, you lived life and part of living was keeping up. He ran until the fire in his cut fed so rich it singed the back of his throat. He ran until his muscles burned as hotly as the budding inferno in his mouth, and it was only when both were unbearable that he staggered to a stop. Sod was scarred as his small black claws dug, scarred then scorched as the familiar fires rushed past his teeth.

When he was done scorching sod he looked back, small tail a-wag the name of his kind dribbling from his snout like spare Embers after a Flamethrower

"Growlithe"

"Wh… whelll… I… I'm… glad.. yooo… you're… having fun!"

Complaint done the leash holder went down with a particular whiny croak. The clasped came in nice, ordered, segments. First the leash slithered past pale finger, then the knees folded and gravity did the rest. Head cocked to the side, tongue lolled out till it ached, the Growlithe watched the human's unfolding fall without blinking. Humanitarian heavy training aside -he was to be a police dog after all... no heartless pyros allowed in _those_ ranks- he felt compeled to dredge up a wince of shame when the body came down with a dull thump and the smell of cooking flesh reached his nostrils.

But only after the cooking smell reached his nose, not before.


	2. Flop: Welcome to reality

Normalcy

The flip: Welcome to Reality

A/N: I don't know where this came from... but it's going to be a AU fic, somewhat cliche in it's mode but hopfully not in it's presentation. I'm probably going to lose readers doing this.. but I want to try to carry this story out to the end. Another spur of the moment idea. Each segment is vaugly inspired by the song in the previous chapter. As you can tell, the stories' rank is mainly for language and idea, if I ever go over to the land of "M" rank someone tell me so and I'll bump up the rank.

The line between beautry and brutaility was hard to gauge. Mercy and method was another grayer area. But given a choice on the grayest of the gray he'd say the most fog ridden middle ground was where obligation met duty. The personal edge was the edge you honed with your own morals, and his was razor sharp, the monoptinous grind of obligation was hard and grim like anything else that was practicle... Out of the two he'd say obligation was the most daming, because without the grind there weren't no money and with no money no food for you.

Today it seemed as if he was due for a gauntlet of _de crulash_. Funny word, simple idea behind it. If duty slashed and obligation crushed than_ de crulash_ was both at once. Pretty nifty thought for a man on the bottem of his class with a laughable IQ score on his last high school test. He polished off the title in his head till it gleamed, and the glint of his pride caught in the edge of his eyes and made them look all wet and glittery.

When the kiddo's face went red -a hot angry red that spoke of burns and bad stuff like that- ol' Tommy waded _de crulash_ in record time. Drop the green in a crapper, kiddo was on _fiya. _Wadin' to jumpin' he pulled the plug and the body jumped as it was logged out in the rudest of manners. Figuring the fact that the kido wasn't screaming or nothing Tom considered his bacon covered, kiddos pulled out too quick had a small chance of fryin' the goods upstairs, luckily the Fryers were easy to spot as they generally screamed after being pulled out.

Pale hands clenched, clenched, relaxed, then the kiddo let out a hiss as one hand found a nail and was scrapped. All motion on the kiddo's part pettered off after that, save the hands were shakin'.

Brushing imaginary residue from his pants he approuched the saddest excuse of a long chair he'd seen in years. Well, he would have said that before joining the Below. Since hooking up with the Below in the basement his job had become an endless scene of kiddos on sad excuses of recliners. he approuched them all the same, whiping his hands on his pant front like he was cleaning em off after a hard days work, his smile forced wide.

Smarter men then Tommy could have found other words than "sad" for the recliners. Smarter men could have read the newspapers from half a year ago and knonw the history and looked at the room, the chair, it's tenent, and shivered.

Once there had been the Game, a VR wonderland populated with both the wonderful and horrible worlds of childhood worlds decades past. "Give the children a glimps of the past generation's creativity" had been the sentimate. Drunk on thier own nostalgia the plan had been put in motion, carried out, and like all money saturated aspects of entertainment the project was hurried. Game hit the shelf, options aplenty, as deep or shallow as you could want, whole words accessable by the putting on a helm and the fip of a switch. Electrons were stroked with alien electronic impulses from the Game's megacomputer, and the helm's wearer expereinced VR in a way only imaginable in the most cliche of sci-fi flicks.

Unlike the cliche there were consequences too deep and complicated to contemplate. Those dire consequences had come to roost so quick that the nationwide plug had been pulled. The masses had turned on the makers of the Game, and the devices had been destroyed, the complimenty chairs that had been sent out with the system to end all systems had been busted, burned, broken, and slashed.

Someone along the line had gathered those fragments and brought them Below. Torns covers -no longer shiny, the logos were as a whole sullied past reading- were stappled in place, shatered frames had been mended with tape and supported with branches from violated trees and boards stolen from department stores furniture.

Rickety wasn't the word, but rickety or not, everyday there was a kiddo sittin' in that chair who was wired in.

An' it was ol' Tom's job to make sure they made it out alright. That the dive in and the leap out worked out alright.

"Fun trip?" He asked, approuching the kido -Tom never bothered to ask for names, there were too many down Below to bother remembering- with a wide smile.

"Hot..." Came the wheezed reply.

"Hey." Hands spred wide, smile spread wider ol' Tom flashed yellow-brown teeth and a dull red tongue when he began his deep rumbling laugh. "You picked the Growlithe."

The kiddo's hands no longer with a bit of a shake to 'em and said limb reached up to pull off the steel and plastic helmet. Once as smooth as a bowl the device now had odd ridges here and there. Those spikes weren't ghosts of a generation's sense of style, someone, somewhere, had taken a hamer to the helm in an attempt to keep the original owner from using it.

"I think it picked me."

Each word was punctured by a deep breath, as if the kiddo was recovering from a long run. Finally there came a tell tail click and the Helm finally came up at the kiddo's tug. Tom let out a low whistle when the kiddo's face was revealed.

"Ya gotta stay out of the sun if ya burn up like _that_."

Pale hands, slender things that juxaposed Tom's thick fingers to the point it was a near cliche reached up and gingerly touched the singed half of the face.

"Yeah, I'll take you up on that."

Job done, -Kiddo was breathing, talking, always a sign of a job _well_ done- Tom nodded in satisfaction and went on his way. This was one room in fifty, a makeshift room, but he still had fifty other kiddos to check on, some with Growlithes, most 'Chu's, Tom went on his way, a whistle on his lips.

Fingers tracing the scorch mark the "kiddo" sighed, a soft sound.

"Life's not fair."

Closing her eyes she could almost see black eyes loking back and up, a glint of fang, a canine smile...

And for the resto f the day, all she could smell was the scent of sod burning.


	3. Flip: A matter of War

Normalcy

Normalcy

Chapter 3:

Flip: "How war is declared…"

_A/n: A quick update, every chapter, unless there are extenuating circumstance to the otherwise, will be showing snippets of the alternate/real world. If the word "Flip" precedes a chapter then it exists in the pokemon world, if the word "flop" precedes the chapter's name then it exists in the real world. Also, my apologies for the spelling errors in the last segment, my time's real limited and I didn't have time to run it by a spell checker, I'll edit chapter two when I get the chance._

_NOTE: edited per Filex's suggestions. 10/20/08. K.S._

Paw scrapped against earth, setting a hot shower a flight. Moaning she cracked open one eye, seeing a familiar blur of orange and a large spot of black she rolled over.

"Nnn.."

"lithe"

No pillows of blankets here, so like any veteran of a nightmare made flesh she put her hands over her face and rolled over. The pressure of the ground against the tender side of her face was enough to jolt her wide-awake. With a yalp she recoiled from the toasty ground.

"Grow_lithe_"

If a single nominative could of been a laugh this one was. Each smoky syllable was all but smothered under a smog of mirth. Huffing it's name, the canine in question's sides heaved and a red tongue poked teasingly past steaming white fangs. Glaring death, destruction, and mute curses at her companion of the moment the trainer gingerly picker her way to her feet, pausing only to pry hot pebbles from the tender flesh of her hands with an occasional "ouch" of pain for her efforts.

Not one to let the emotion of the moment slip, the growlithe looked up and wagged his whole hind portion in approval.

"Bloody, fuzzy, sadist!"

Each word was a wheeze, force past the smoky tentacles her pyromaniac companion had set to flight in the air with that poorly planed flamethrower. Finally, after a series of false starts, she forced the words past the smoke. For her efforts she was gifted with the ability to talk and a complimentary metallic taste that filled her whole mouth. Pulling her water bottle from it's holster on her belt she took a swig and licked her lips with an acidic feeling tongue. To that minor pain she put her hand over her eyes and rubbed at her forehead, willing the dancing spots of light to fade till they were gone.

Each breath is hitched, with a ghost of a wheeze in attendance. The dancing lights are a surreal memory, quickly forgotten in sight of normal vision's return… and the boundary of feeling sick and being sick remains uncrossed for today. Internal assessment done, she drops her hand in a completely unconscious show of melodrama. The sight after melodrama's passing was enough to dredge up ash bitter grin.

"How stupid do you think I am?"

Orange head tilted up, red-white tuft charmingly draped over one black eye, the canine offers no "bark" or "arf" of agreement. But then the mutt's big mouth is occupied in holding up the business end of a leash.

The offer is obvious, insultingly so, and it's one that can't be refused.

"Why'd I take a job as police dog trainer when I logged in?"

Black eyes look up, black meets brown then fades away to orange with a quick blink of confusion. The hind portion of the canine is stone still now as something like concern –but colder, more calculated- but without the caring leaps to light on the coal of those eyes. Leather merrily toasted in the dog's tender nip, and the scent brought back remembered pains and complied remembrance on present agony of the moment. Oblivious to the fact that the tips of those furnace hot teeth were curing the already curried leather to a fine flaky char the growlithe tipped his head making the tuft flop from eye a to eye b. It's the smell, and it's attendant ramifications, that breaks the impasse.

"Give me that!"

Reaching down she snatched the leash from those teeth and wound the grip in her pale sweet slick hand. Spotting opportunity the growlithe leapt to action, charging ahead to start the run all over again. Four steps out the leash gets tight, five and it's asphyxiation city, with a croak and a gasp the fire type whirled on white socked paws to see what was up. To be painfully precise, the leash was up. Held taunt and wound in hand and arm, the arm and it's attendant trainer had made a sharp pivot to get part of the ways behind a tree.

"While we're in the park, doggie, we're _walking_."

Black eyes thin, the orange fur on the scruff of the "Doggie"'s neck bristles as he heard his new name.

And just like that war was declared. Ash bitter words said after the blaze of mal-aligned good intent. War was served with a touch of scorched sod on the side and it's sauce was the serrated edge of sadism that sliced both ways and sliced in deep. Serve cold, garnish well, and enjoy.

The growlithe snarled, the human snarled back, and the walk began again. Slow at first, to avoid a run's attendant "accidental" throttle, at least in the park. But once the last of Viridian's faux forest were left behind the run would begin under different, harder, rules.

And the conflict would begin again.


	4. Flop: fun

Normalcy

Chapter 4

Flop: Fun

Once upon a time there'd been a storage center. The storage center had been a simple case of plaster walls and cheap tin garage doors, the. Poorly ended by the owner and abandoned by it's tenents life had gone on. Deteriation had come in degrees, the pealing of green paint, the rusting of gears. Soon such unsightly features were masked in the growing dark of the towering behomiths as an ambitions downtown grew around the lot. Shade crossed and criss-crossed in bulky garages of the storage center. And all was preserved because it was forgotten, and for being forgotten it continued to rot.

Ambition had come and gone, the towers now swayed like drunkards in the gathering gloom. Surrounded by a modern day ruin, she crained her neck up to consider the broken bloody teeth of glass. Steel frames poked out of the crumbling edges of fallen enterprises, and the world was stained a haunting skin of illusionary red as the sun continued it's callous descent into nights maw. Even the flesh, exspecially the flesh...

She shivered, and Tom drapped a companionable arm over her shoulders, offering a bit of warmth if nothing else.

From descent they rose only to be guilded to these ruins. Her favorite drop off place from the Basement was this abandoned storige center. It offered a short walk from the present local to home. It also had the dubious convenince of being near a bus stop. Not taht she would dare catch the bus by an abandoned lot. Someone as well dressed as she was should have been driving a car or in worse case scenario should have the were withall to call a cab. But cars had to be parked, and cabbies asked question so to avoid both she walked. Absently paralleling a bus route in hopes that if anything "happened" there could be witnesses and perhaps heros.

It was at the garage, or other broken down places scatered around town, that the players were released. Like wild animals they were sent out to the wild to mingle and meld. From the edges, circling in, they slipped from there rotting waystations back to the real.

Some gamers faded from the gameworld in a state of shock, others left on edge, those were the easy to spot ones. Those players had hollowed out gazes of those seeing heaven and being denied. The hopeless grew to hate the "real" world. Being "unplugged" for them lead to a ephiny. Long ago, before the fed's and various other govormental bodied had laid down there prohibitations those few player had come to realize that they held power and were being forced to recind it again and again.

All because the world they came from would never respect them, never _know_ then...

Such was the plight of the desperate, the wild eyed, the eternally frusterated. For one such as her the fangs of frusteration hadn't sunk in yet. Too wound up in the pains of her present reality that consitted of the aches of a weak body and the melodrama of a mind caught in an extended adolescence, the fangs hadn't hit home.

Picking her way over rubble and walking alongside walls scarred by bullets and doors that were dented or riped out so someone could take and sell the tin the unusual pair made there way through the ordered rows of discolored company patened colored building with there patches of vibrant graffetti. On the edge of the uneven grounds Tom stopped, let his arm drop.

"Tell me about your day."

So she did, detailing every event from log in to drop out, and Tom smiled wide, flashing browning teeth and even indulging in a laugh.

"Damn good day then."

She snorted at that coment, not quite laughing, -she hadn't laughed, not in years- but it was close enough to make Tom laugh again like he was joining in with the greatest laugher in the world.

"You had fun evenin' score wi' Doggie."

"That was fun." She replied, saying what Tom wanted to hear, as always. Then, in honor of the irony of the moment she flashed him a quick smile that was returned in length and warmth by brown-yellow teeth. "It would have been better if he hadn't descided to drag me out into traffic to get even." The gamer tagged on, rolling her shoulder's in a half hearted shrug.

"You had fun." Tom countered. Then, having used up all his talk, he turned on his heel and made his way back to the one garage in the lot that had the way back to the Basement set up.

At least it was the one that lead down for this week, they'd change it next, as always.

It was only when she slipped out of the dark and began to walk down the red tinted road that she realized that the fighting aside she'd _had_ had fun.

For the first time in years.


End file.
